Multicultural Psychology. Jennifer T. Pedrotti
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3: Culture and Worldview
Chapter 4: Cultural Identity Development
Chapter 5: Our Racialized Social Context: Racism, Oppression, and Stereotyping
3 Culture and Worldview
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Learning Objectives
Identify the influence of personal and cultural values and beliefs on the development of worldviews.
Recognize that multiple factors (e.g., time orientation, identity, unique experiences, etc.) impact the type of worldview one develops.
Understand the major models of worldview in the field.
Interpret the impact of different social identity facets on individual and group worldviews.
Understand the importance of intersectionality in the development of worldview.
Identify the facets that create worldview in the life of someone who is different from you, and analyze their impacts.
The world is just so fast these days! I remember when people used to take time for each other and weren’t always rushing around. Yesterday I dropped my grandchildren off at school and I saw these three mothers rushing around, wearing high heels, calling out quick greetings as they dropped off their kids—they didn’t spend five minutes with each other at school. They are putting their careers and money above their families and relationships. When I was younger, the other mothers and I made time to help out in the classroom and time to chat with each other. We would often meet at each other’s houses for coffee for a while after school drop off. And no one was looking at their phone all the time or texting—that’s not a real relationship. It’s too bad mothers don’t connect anymore.
—Johanna, age 75
Yesterday, I dropped my daughters off for school, and it happened that I dropped off at the same time as two other mothers I haven’t seen in a while. We were all so happy to just have a second to wave at each other and say hi for a minute as we walked to our cars. All of us had to get off to work quickly, but we told each other that we should get together soon. One texted the other two of us later that afternoon, and we made a plan pretty quickly to meet for coffee next week at a café that’s pretty close to everyone’s jobs. We really get each other, so it’s nice to have a moment to talk about trying to balance everything. One of them just started back to work again, as she and her husband have been struggling financially a bit, so the other two of us are trying to support her while she transitions back to work. It’s so great that we have the kind of technology we do today, or it would be so hard to set anything up. I don’t know how mothers would have ever made plans so long ago—it would have taken forever to call all around. I’m so glad we took the time to connect with each other!
—Rachel, age 38
How we see the world depends on so many things. It seems hard to believe that two people could look at the same thing and think such different thoughts, but this is something that happens on a regular basis. You may remember in 2015 when a dress was posted on a Tumblr website and a debate began about whether the dress was white and gold, or blue and black. This debate about “the dress” had people arguing with one another all over the internet: “Are you looking at the same thing I am?” and “How can you think that it’s black and blue? It’s so obviously gold and white!” Though, in this case, these different views had more to do with a washed out photograph and poor lighting, worldview in general can feel like this at times. Sometimes it is hard to believe that the way you see things isn’t the only way.
Some see this as a picture of a young woman, while others see it as an older woman.
United States Library of Congress
Consider the vignettes above from Johanna and Rachel. Both women recounted the same scene—three mothers dropping their kids off for school—but they had very different interpretations of what was happening. In addition, they had different opinions of many things related to this encounter, including technology (Rachel sees this as a way to connect and develop a relationship, while Johanna sees it as not actually spending time with people) and the role of women in home and work (Rachel and her friends all work outside the home, but Johanna sees this as not fulfilling their roles as women). Even the way the quick meeting with the three women was interpreted was viewed differently by the two. Rachel was thrilled to have a moment to see her friends, and the three followed up later with texts to continue their conversation to make plans to meet. Johanna viewed this as not taking time with each other and saw their phones as a distraction as opposed to a method of communication. Some of these worldview differences may have to do with age and generation. When Johanna was Rachel’s age and raising young children, it was less common for women to work outside the home, and depending on the situation, a single income may have been more feasible and more common for a family. Technology in the form of smart phones and texting wasn’t available, and so it may seem unfamiliar to her. Notice how Rachel can’t imagine how anyone would be able to get together without this, however.
The word worldview is meant to encompass the way we see the world through the varying lenses of our culture, our identities, and our experiences. You may have heard the old adage, “You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” Understanding the heart of this message—that we all see things differently in our own lives—is critical to understanding others who are different from ourselves. Consider Figure 3.1a.
Note the caption, “Upside Down World Map.” In some ways, this is an inaccurate moniker—the world is round and space is infinite, and as such there is no top or bottom in actuality. When the first cartographers began to try to make better sense out of our world, the “top” was chosen as north and became the way we look at the planet as an entity. Still, had they taken a different vantage point, the picture in Figure 3.1a could just as easily have been the “Right Side Up Map!” Take a look now at Figure 3.1b.
Does anything look different to you in this depiction? In this map, the continents are represented to scale, meaning that their actual size is represented relevant to one another. If you are from the United States, however, it is unlikely you have ever seen the continent of Africa shown in such a large and prominent way. Look at Australia, and notice that it is roughly the same size as the United States, though in many maps it looks much smaller. Finally, look closely at Figure 3.1c.
Figure 3.1a Upside Down World Map
Figure 3.1b Rightside Up World Map
Figure 3.1c Map With Countries Represented